RPRF Birthday Stories

Remembering the Past Resourcing the Future

A set of stories about the lives of people from the North East, recalling personal memories and significant events in the region.

North Tyneside’s Remembering the Past, Resourcing the Future (RPRF) project, which chronicles the life and times of North Tyneside in the 20^th century, receives invaluable support from a group of volunteers. In 2012, a number of the group celebrated significant birthdays, so we worked with RPRF on a digital storytelling workshop for the volunteers.

The group includes 90 year old Kitty who shared some of her many stories, including her memory of a childhood trip to Cullercoats beach. Olive recalled many amazing stories of her outreach work in far flung places and decided to tell her story, Grandma’s gone to Kathmandu, about a visit to Nepal during her 70s.

"I had wanted to organise a project with Curiosity Creative for quite a while after seeing some of their work at an exhibition and also getting to know Alex's methods and approaches. In 2012 I realised that several of the volunteers who do so much for both RPRF and its associated project North Shields Library Club, were celebrating significant events, including 90th birthdays, retirements and anniversaries. Subsequent discussions led into the creation and delivery of the 'Birthday Stories' project and the stories are now part of Curiosity Creative's archive (which pleases the participants very much).

Alex worked through the whole digital story process with the participants, enabling them to identify the particular story they wanted to tell. Their initial nervousness soon ebbed away and several happy sessions were spent creating scripts, scanning photographs and recording the stories. The group enjoyed the whole experience but the highpoint was certainly the viewing event at the end of the project.

I would say that everyone has at least one digital story in them and Curiosity Creative has the expertise and resources to make sure that every participant has an enjoyable experience with a high quality outcome."

Dr Kath Smith, Director Remembering the Past, Resourcing the Future project

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